


Sit Beside Me

by VanishingPoint



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manly Fluff (the best kind of fluff), Porn With Plot, canonical violence, reference to past torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8242601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanishingPoint/pseuds/VanishingPoint
Summary: He lost the man, he got him back. God knows what he's supposed to do now.





	1. A Small Mistake

It was mid-morning and the air smelled like gasoline and burned rubber.

Crouched beside the rear wheel of the abandoned carrier truck, Steve pressed down on the tire. Air escaped from somewhere in the inner tube in a long, angry hiss.

He knew it had been a long shot, but still had to take a moment to swear under his breath before bringing the radio to his lips. “It’s a no go.”

“Damn.” Bucky’s voice crackled in through the radio. “Guess it was too much to ask ‘em to leave without slashing the tires first.”

“Guess so. Maybe we could find a way to patch it.”

“With what? Snow?”

“Hell if I know."

"Bullets, maybe. I've still got a couple."

"I’m just tossing out ideas, tough guy.” Steve made his way around the squat canvas truck. He checked for a spare, but as it turned out it was already in use on the front left wheel, and slashed just like the other three. The engine itself looked fine—or, at least, it didn’t appear to have been stripped for parts or intentionally disabled—but Steve was wary of starting it. On one of the early Commando missions, he’d run across an abandoned motorcycle near a German blockade, but just as he’d been about to start it, Vance had noticed the crossed wires and the gun powder in the snow. Turned out having a bomb expert on the team was useful on a near-daily basis. Hydra sure liked their booby traps.

Vance wasn’t here now, though, and Steve was hardly in the mood to give his luck a try. The propaganda back home might call him indestructible but he wasn’t willing to test himself against a gasoline explosion any time soon.

He cursed again. Without a fresh tire, they were dead on their feet. The jeep they’d commandeered a few hours back had been running alright, but they’d popped a wheel on some road spikes hidden under the snow a couple of miles back and damn near crashed the thing. And while the engine was fine, it wasn’t going anywhere without that back tire. The flat couldn’t get any traction on the snow.

“Cap,” Bucky’s voice murmured. “Heads up.”

Steve knew that particular note in Bucky’s voice. He scrambled to his feet, aware of how vulnerable he was, a dark spot in the center of the snowy white clearing, his shield hidden back in some brush by the tree line. “Where?”

“Ten. Two. Eleven o’clock.”

So three people, ahead of him, trying to flank Steve from the other side of the truck. He couldn’t see them yet, but as he focused he could hear the soft, careful crunch of their footsteps. “Got a shot?”

In answer, a high, thunderous _crack_ echoed through the clearing, followed by the very distinct thud of a body hitting the snow on the other side of the truck. Two other voices rose in sharp German, footsteps charging through the ice as they ran around opposite sides of the truck.

Steve dropped to the ground as more shots rang out, and rolled beneath the vehicle’s low metal chasse. Another body fell to the ground, and Steve thanked his lucky stars—not for the first time—that Bucky was such a damn good shot. And that he hadn’t run out of bullets for his rifle quite yet. Steve’s own handgun was little better than a bludgeon at his hip, for all the good it would do him in a fight.

The remaining soldier had his gun out now and fired up at the trees, trying to pick Bucky from his hidden perch, sending up shrieking spurts of wood splinters as he struck trunk instead.

“Oh no you don’t.” Steve reached out and caught the man’s ankle and yanking hard enough to sweep the man flat onto his face. A split second later, Bucky’s final shot cracked through the clearing and caught the man through the neck.

As soon as the man was down, Steve scrambled out from other the car and glanced around the clearing. Three bodies, all down, red-black blood seeping into the snow and beginning to steam. A hole through the chest of one, the throat of another—Steve wondered for a second why Bucky had aimed so low, but nodded when he recognized the thick gunnery helmets on the mens’ heads. Those things were tough as hell, and Bucky’s current rifle wasn’t a very heavy caliber.

Steve raised his gaze to search for Bucky in the trees. Like usual, he saw nothing but snow-capped trees, swaying in the wind. “Good shots, Buck.”

“Thanks,” came the crackling reply. “That last guy almost got me though. Felt the bullet whiz right by my ear, I swear to god.” Dressed in his gray-brown speckled fatigues, Bucky emerged from his spot against the mid-trunk of a spruce as if he were appearing out of still air. He tucked his rifle into the crook of his arm—the shoulder strap had been cut to supply a tourniquet for an injured POW from the mission several days before—and began to climb down. He landed on the ground with a crunch, boots sinking deep into the thick-crusted snow.

“So it was a trap,” Steve said, surveying the clearing one last time, even as he gathered his backpack and his shield from the underbrush. They would need to move. The gunshots would draw the attention of anybody nearby.

“They came out of the bushes on the north side, yeah.”

“Dammit.” Steve started to search the bodies, stripping the meager supplies of ammo from their pockets for Bucky’s German-made rifle, checking to find the one with the least blood, and stripping him of his jacket, hat and gloves. “Looks like we’ll have to walk from here.” Steve glanced up at the clouds, which were beginning to loom in great, dark pillars against the mountain peaks. They’d had to ditch the outer jackets of their uniforms when they stole the jeep, and it had been fairly miserable going since then. “At least we have some warm clothes before the storm hits.”

Bucky grimaced, then picked up a jacket. He poked a finger through the bullet hole that went straight through the center of it. Blood had soaked into the leather in a great, dark stain. “Hooray for us.”

#

It was the middle of winter in Southern occupied France. 1944.

Steve pulled his coat tighter around him and kept his eyes on his feet. Several days had passed since the ambush at the truck.

They’d ended up ditching the jeep, and given up on trying to find a new vehicle entirely. There was just too much of a chance of being caught. Even if they did have a truck or something, sticking to the roads was proving to be a poor choice. Instead, they’d struck out into the forest, hoping they might avoid running into any large groups.

Snow had been falling in the weeks before and piled up in great, chest-high drifts. The weather had briefly improved for a day or two, even bringing some rare sunshine to their meager corner of France, but then last night had brought sleet and then a heavy morning rainfall. It was still drizzling on and off, and with the ever-dropping temperature, the ice had settled in hard crusts on every still surface while the ground refroze in a thick, icy slush.

Steve’s instincts chafed at the need to travel in this kind of weather. Normally, survival dictated that the battlefield would come to a standstill when snow fell this heavily. After all, in this kind of cold, the enemy ceased to be other human beings and instead became the numbness in the toes of men’s boots and the icy fingers of their gloves and the sweat that built up beneath their layers, ready to chill skin and bones as soon as they stopped moving.

The issue was that normal battle practices didn’t really seem to apply with Hydra. If a Hydra squad got onto an Allied squad’s trail, the bastards didn’t let up until they’d run the last Hydra underling into the ground trying to take them down. If Hydra knew they had _the_ Captain America in their sights, there was no way they would let him escape, even if every Hydra soldier in the Alps had to freeze to death in the process. It was incredible that the organization could still inspire loyalty in the men it so willingly tossed aside.

The Howling Commandoes had been running a behind-enemy-lines op, but the tail end had gotten botched. A man they’d assumed was a French civilian had actually turned out to be a Hydra agent, and before they knew it they were being run down by tanks boasting guns that would’ve made Howitzer cry. Most of the team had gotten out, along with the POWs they’d rescued, but the fire had been heavy and Steve—and by extension, Bucky—had decided to dig in and hold their ground to cover the escape. It had been a close fight, but they managed to pick the little crowd of Hydra troops off with pot-shot guerrilla tactics, taking them out one or two at a time.

For a brief minute there, it had seemed as if Steve and Bucky had managed a minor victory. But then the temperature had started to fall, and the snow began to build, and the pass in the mountains they’d been planning to use to escape had turned impassible, and they realized that Hydra had backed off with the knowledge that these two insane Americans had nowhere to escape _to,_ even if they did manage to put enough distance behind them.

Hydra might not get them, but there was now a distinct possibility that the elements would.

A couple of yards behind him, Steve could hear the heavy trod of Bucky’s heavy footsteps. He had been listening to those dragging steps for the better part of the morning, and could only think fondly of the steps from days ago, when those boots had been surer, steadier. When the trees had been thicker overhead and the snow thinner on the ground, and the going had been significantly easier.

But today, out in the open where the snow was knee-high at its lowest, the going was slow, and difficult. Every step forward through the snow was like slogging through a bog, and in many places the ice had crusted thick enough to need several stomps to break through to the ground. And under the snow, shifting stones and snagging roots threatened constantly to trip him up. Bucky always had been light on his feet, but today he didn’t so much step as plod, the way a stray dog might plod down a street, the weight of his body resting fully on each foot, as if he might sink right down past his legs and into the ground.

It was almost frightening. Watching Bucky struggle felt a bit like watching his childhood heroes getting torn from their pedestals. It still felt that way, even after Azzano, even over a year after Steve was pumped full of muscle and branded as a bonafide superhero himself. Some small, childish part of him was still waiting for Bucky to swoop in and save him, not the other way around.

Steve took point, breaking the ice crust in the snow with the edge of his shield, and make the going a little easier for the both of them, tamping the snow down and letting the other man step directly into his bootprints.

It was past noon, though, and the sun was beginning to sink in the sky.

Steve fought a shiver. Ever since the serum, he ran hot. Very hot. He could practically feel the steam rising from his shoulders in the chill afternoon air, even now, but beneath that he could feel the first tendrils of cold beginning to leech into his core. He may be less susceptible to cold, but apparently even he had limits. A fact that didn’t bode well for a normal human like Bucky.

Well, not _normal._ Not exactly. Steve knew Schmidt’s scientists had done something to Bucky, though he didn’t know exactly what, and he wasn’t sure if Bucky even knew, really. Bucky wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t even let the military doctors look at him, and practically begged Steve not to suggest a thorough evaluation in his mission report.

A request that Steve had grudgingly honored. He wasn’t sure what Bucky was trying to hide, but he’d be damned if he was going to force it out of him. Steve had been a willing lab rat, after all. Bucky—not so much.

Behind him, Bucky scoffed. “Quit it. I can hear you worrying.”

Steve glanced back. “I’m amazed you can hear anything over the sound of your teeth chattering.”

“My hearing’s top notch, punk. I can—.” Bucky broke off to step up and over a log that lay across the path. “I can hear the cogs in your skull grinding, and it’s frankly incredible—” Another pause, this time to wipe at his nose with a gloved hand. “It’s incredible they haven’t jammed right up and gone quiet.”

“My brain works just find, jerk.”

“Well, mine doesn’t. My mind went _real_ quiet around the time we passed _Aix’an Provence_. I figured I’d let it sleep until we get someplace a little less…” He chuckled, but it turned into a stuttering inhale against a gust of cutting wind, which only made him laugh harder, like a kid during a winter’s first snow. “Hypothermic.”

Steve chuckled aloud but felt his eyebrows drawing even tighter together. “Good thing you’re used to functioning without a working brain.” Bucky’s sarcasm may lose a little of its luster when said with breath that stuttered with cold, but humor was generally the last thing to go in Steve’s squad. Every man on the team would die with a punchline on their lips if they had any say in the matter, especially Barnes.

“And which one of us thought hanging behind and playing hero was a good plan?”

“I told you to go ahead. Isn’t my fault you’re an insubordinate ass.

“You started it.”

The sun was setting and the wind was picking up.

The sounds of Bucky’s footfalls abruptly stopped.

Steve stopped as well and turned. “Alright?”

Bucky stood steadily enough, but his lips were pale, and he stood at a slight angle, as if the wind were a crutch he could lean against. His eyes, though, were sharp, and cast firmly off to the trees to his left. “You see that?”

Steve didn’t see anything. He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and stooped a bit, leaning to the side as well to get Bucky’s vantage point.

At first, he saw nothing but tree trunks and low-hanging pine needles but then— _there_. A few hundred yards away, the flat, dark line of a man-made structure, almost entirely obscured by the line of the trees. He squinted, and imagined he could see a snowy cottage roof and the broad side of a low shed.

“How on earth did you see that?”

“You’d’ve seen it too, if you were paying attention.”

Steve hummed. “Could be a place to spend the night, maybe. What do you think?”

Bucky tightened his lips. “Could be another trap.”

“Do you think they know we were coming this way?” They’d left the road a while back, and Steve couldn’t imagine the slush and rain had been leaving much of a trail for anyone to follow. But then again, who knew? Tracking wasn’t Steve’s specialty. And neither was evasion. That was more Bucky’s expertise.

Bucky shrugged. “It’s fifty-fifty, really. We could’ve gone south, but we chose north. If nothing else, they’ll have split to try and cover us.” He stood sturdy beneath Steve’s grip, but there was a faint tremble against Steve’s palm that could have been cold or exhaustion but was probably both.

That, if nothing else, decided it. “Might as well go have a look, then.”

Of course, caution took the front seat in these kinds of situations, and Steve took his time approaching the clearing, shield on his arm, pack slung so that he could drop it from his shoulders in a heartbeat if needed. Once they were well into the treeline, Bucky’s footsteps peeled away and slipped off into the trees. They had their search-and-sweep protocol down pat when it was just the two of them. Bucky still had a handful of rounds for his rifle, and so was more effective out of sight, covering Steve’s back.

Up close, the low buildings revealed themselves to be a small log cabin and a narrow stone shed. Snow lay piled up against the buildings in great, sloping drifts that nearly touched the eaves.

Listening hard and hearing nothing, Steve drew closer and stepped into the clearing. No light shone from inside the warped windows of the cottage. The snow around the clearing lay pristine and undisturbed beneath its fresh ice shell. By all appearances, the place was deserted.

Steve tilted his head to the radio at his lapel. “Any movement?”

“Nope,” came Bucky’s reply, voice crackling through the speaker. Their plan, if a large group happened upon them, was to feign harmlessness. Steve would stash his shield, and Bucky would drop his American-made rifle into a snow bank. With their newly-scrounged coats and beanies, the two of them might pass for French civilians, or German deserters at worst. Steve hardly stood out as Captain America without his signature uniform—or, at least, so he hoped.

Bucky thought otherwise. He was convinced that people could recognize Steve by his silhouette alone.

“I’m gonna head in,” Steve said. “We good?”

“We’re good.”

Steve approached the shed first. Its walls were made of rough-hewn stone in a pitted cement, and the door was little more than a thin pine slab. It broke off of its hinges easily enough. Inside, the space was empty, save for long metal racks and hooks on the walls and ceiling. It was the kind of building that a mountain trapper might use for curing fresh-caught meat and skins.

After kicking around in the corners to check for provisions—there were none—he stepped out of the building again, Bucky’s scope like a physical weight on his back—a comfort he’d grown used to.

The cabin’s door was tougher to get into. The rain had refrozen in the wood and stuck it fast within its frame, half-buried beneath the thick slab of ice-packed snow that built up against the walls. Steve considered his options. He was wary of just bashing the thing in. It wouldn’t be hard, but knocking the door down would make it a lot tougher to keep the cold out once they were inside, and also mark the building out as a target to any passersby.

He was just putting down his shield to investigate the door’s hinges when a voice from right behind him and said, “We could just break a window.”

Steve jumped and twisted at the sudden sound, then sagged. “Jesus, Bucky. Warn a guy.”

“’S not my fault you’ve decided to go deaf.” A couple of pine needles clung to the wool of his beanie. Steve reached up automatically to brush them away. Bucky ducked under the motion, then almost lost his balance, putting up a shaking, gloved hand to catch Steve’s arm, continuing, as if nothing had happened, “If we go in through a window, we can probably find something to patch it up with. Better than trying to patch up a door. Less obvious too.”

Steve dropped his arm, pretending for the moment that he hadn’t noticed the falter. “Let’s do it.”

“Only problem is, it’s too exposed.” Bucky pointed a hand back the direction they’d come. “I saw it from the treeline. Anybody else could, too. And they’d be an idiot not to check it.”

Steve looked pointedly at Bucky’s hand, which was outright shaking. “ _We’ll_ be the idiots if we freeze to death outside a perfectly good building.”

Bucky tilted his head to concede the point.

They made their way around the building. A window sat high up in the wall, set deep into the wood. Steve sized it up, then waved Bucky closer. “Here, I’ll boost you up.”

“I don’t know…” Bucky said, shaking out his hands and planting the butt of his rifle into the snow to free up his arms. “I mean, _I_ can probably make it, but you think you’ll fit? What with the general—” He held his hands out, parallel to his own shoulders, but wider, indicating the general width of Steve’s person. “Girth?”

“I prefer breadth.” Steve said, crouching drown and cupping his hands together. Bucky stepped up onto his hands, and Steve stood slowly, lifting him.

Just like every other time he used his strength around Bucky, the peculiarity of it struck him anew—perhaps because Bucky was the only person he fought beside who’d known him before he was strong. Sure, Steve was _aware_ of how heavy Bucky was, of the general density of him—Buck was a full-grown man, and not a small one—but actually moving that weight was as easy as lifting a child.

Unaware of Steve’s musings, Bucky set to work chipping ice away from the window with the weighted back-end of his knife. “It doesn’t unlatch, looks like,” he called down.

“Dammit. Any movement inside?”

“Nope.”

Steve nodded, then lowered his head to protect his face. “Smash it.”

Bucky chuckled, and then there was the high, almost musical sound of breaking glass, echoing through the frigid air of the clearing. Little bits showered down, bouncing off the back of Steve’s shoulders and head as Bucky stuck his arm through the hole and started breaking the edges outward with the metal-capped grip of his knife, knocking the jagged edges out of their framing.

Just a few seconds later, and his weight was lifting out of Steve’s arms as Bucky hauled himself up and through the window. Steve let him go and looked up, watching the soles of Bucky’s boots disappear through the hole, followed by a soft thud from within.

“Is it full of Nazis?” Steve called, after a few quiet moments.

“Yep,” came the muffled reply. “Better get in here. They’re serving tea.”

“Tell them I’m a coffee kind of guy.” Steve handed Bucky’s rifle up, through the window, followed by his own shield. He had to turn the shield diagonally to get it through, and even then he had to shove it through, leaving thin, splintering indents in the edges of the wood. And then when he jumped up and pulled himself through, his shoulders caught on the frame and he had to turn himself diagonally as well, to Bucky’s apparent amusement.

Finally, though, he dropped to the floor within and stood. The interior was dim, the floor made of untreated pine planking, the wooden furniture around the room bare and trimmed with a thin layer of frost. There was a table, two chairs, a bed. An empty stone fireplace set into the far wall.

That first moment indoors, out of the wind, felt like the first proper breath he’d had in days. The air was so still, so quiet, he felt momentarily as if he’d been deaf and had his hearing miraculously returned to him.

“Cozy,” Steve said.

Bucky was already making his way around the room, checking the cabinets and shelves. His movements were an odd mix of military efficiency and the staggering exhaustion of a sleepwalker.

“If they’ve got a wood pile,” Steve said. “It’s probably outside, soaked under three feet of rain and snow.”

“We could burn the furniture, I guess.”

“And be rude to our kind hosts?” Steve said, although even as he said it, he knew that the owners of this cottage were dead, likely as not. Hydra had been in the area for months. The local, rural French wouldn’t have stood a chance. “Although we shouldn’t start a fire until after sunset.” The smoke would give them away for sure.

Bucky paused in his search, then nodded wearily and sat back on his heels, eyes tight. “That’s smart, yeah.”

_Sorry_ , Steve almost said, watching the way that Bucky’s hands shook and the odd way that he held his shoulders shrugged up high, as if the cold were a physical blow to be fended off. Steve was already feeling better now that he was out of direct wind, but Bucky didn’t look like he was planning to bounce back so quickly.

Instead, Steve shrugged off his coat and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. The leather and its fleece lining were heavy with water. “It’s just a couple of hours ’til dark. You can catch some sleep, and I’ll build up the fire when—”

“I’m fine, Steve,” Bucky cut him off. He softened the words with a faint wry smile. “You know. It’s okay. I’m sturdy.” He straightened from his search and moved to sit in the other chair. He shoved his pack from the table, and then set his rifle up against the wall with far greater care.

Steve made himself sit as well. His stomach dropped as he saw watched Bucky fight down yet another a spine-wracking shake. “You need to get out of those wet clothes, at least.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Bucky looked Steve up and down. His eyebrows drew together. “You should too.”

Steve chuckled. “I’ll be fine. Indestructible, remember?”

Bucky frowned, but didn’t respond immediately.

Outside, the wind howled, whistling around the eaves of the house and against the gaping hole of the window. Night was beginning well on its way, and the dim interior of the cabin was quickly heading toward true darkness. The cloud cover was thicker than ever. They weren’t going to get any moon or stars through that window any time soon.

“Hey. Steve.”

Steve frowned and tore his eyes from the window. “What?”

Bucky was frowning deeper. That might not have been the first time he’d called Steve’s name. “I said, when’s the last time you slept?”

Steve dismissed the question with a scoff. “I’m fine, Buck. You don’t gotta worry.”

“No, man. When’d you sleep last?” Bucky thankfully quit staring at him, instead bending over to wrestle with the water-swollen knots on his left boot. “‘Cuz I haven’t seen you with our eyes shut in at least a week. Not since we split with the rest of the squad.”

“You know, I’m not sure,” Steve said honestly. He stood and moved to crouch in front of Bucky, pushing clumsy hands aside to unlace the boots himself.

“You don’t have to do that,” Bucky muttered, but made no move to stop him.

“I know I don’t.” If he was being honest with himself, Steve might not feel _too_ bad, but now that he was standing still, there was a definite weight in his hands and feet. And his head didn’t feel right. There was a strange, cavernous space in the back of his head that felt like it might swallow him up if he turned his back on it. “I feel alright,” Steve said, as if saying it might make it true. “You know, I can go pretty long without sleep now. The army did tests.”

That drew a frown to Bucky’s face again. “Well, even if you can, maybe let’s not push it. You ain’t doing me any favors if I end up having to drag your heavy ass out of France.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. Somehow, Bucky always managed to twist things around and turn them right back on Steve. He’d been like that ever since they were kids. Like when they were ten and Bucky fell into the water at the docks, and he’d come up, sputtering with cold, and checked to make sure Steve’s asthma wasn’t acting up. “I told you I’m fine, Buck.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky sat forward in the chair and stripped off his sodden jacket. There were still bits of ice around his sleeves and the edges of his collar. The heavy wool plaid beneath looked damp to the touch. He stripped that too, letting it fall to the floor with a water-logged thump and leaving him sitting in just his trousers and a thin, long-sleeved undershirt that clung to the edges of him, damp against his skin. “And I’m telling you you’re sleep deprived. Just ‘cuz you’re all big and scary now doesn’t mean you get exclusive worry privileges,” he said. He moved to peel off the undershirt as well, the skin along his spine and shoulders pimpling as it was exposed. “And just cuz the army ran tests in a lab doesn’t mean that shit’s gonna hold up in in a combat scenario.”

Steve dropped his gaze, hoping his ears hadn’t turned noticeably red, and that Bucky hadn’t seen him staring. He turned to dig through the shelves beside him, even though he knew Bucky had already searched them just fine. “What makes you say that?”

“I got the drop on you just a minute ago. Outside. That never happens.”

He had a point there. “Maybe, but I still think I get _some_ right to worry. And I feel fine, Buck, I—oh, thank God.” He’d forced open a cupboard on the bottom shelf, its wood warped with cold and nearly impossible to open, and felt something soft within against his hand. He grasped a handful of fabric and pulled it out to reveal a large quilt. He held it up like a trophy.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but managed a grin. “We’re saved.”

Steve patted around the shelf, but found nothing but cold wood. He’d been hoping for a little more than that, maybe even some extra clothing. “That’s all we got.”

“Looks like we’ll have to penguin up, then.”

“Leech all you want.” He’d stolen enough of Bucky’s heat over the years. Back in Brooklyn, the kids in their neighborhood had often found that their ratty, thin coats were too worn to hold out the chill. They’d all huddled together in groups, shoulder-to-shoulder, like penguins, to better hold their heat. Sometimes Steve would shake so hard on those cold mornings that Bucky would take him around behind the gymnasium and sandwich him between himself and the radiator. Steve could still almost smell the thick coal-burnt air of the radiator, and the softer aroma of Bucky’s hand-me-down leather jacket, and the warm breath of oatmeal whenever Bucky leaned in to speak, and Steve remembered how, as he got older, those warm feelings of friendship and gratitude that swelled in his chest had turned into something simultaneously heavier and hot enough to hurt.

Bucky got to his feet and stripped off his wet trousers, down to his shorts.

Steve unfolded the blanket. In the low light, his enhanced eyes could still make out some of the details in the stitching. A deep navy blue backdrop with red polka dot square accents. Each corner had an animal stitched into it in white thread: a duck, a lion, a dog, and an elephant. He ran a thumb along the elephant, admiring the deft detailing of its tiny little tusks, and the little knots for his eyes. He wondered about the person who had taken the time to create such little details, who she’d made it for, and what had happened to her.

“Gimme that,” Bucky muttered, lifting the quilt from Steve’s hands, far more gently than his tone. He pulled it around his bare shoulders, his own fingers tracing the stitching for a moment before moving to simply wrap it closer around him. "Quit moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

“Sure you aren’t. Quit getting all depressed about the poor, beautiful French woman or whatever that made this thing.” He shook a corner of the blanket at Steve. “For all we know, this is a Hydra blanket. Some Hydra lady made this thing to keep her evil little Hydra babies warm at night.”

Steve rolled his eyes but, as always, Bucky’s sarcasm made him feel a little better. He made his way over to the bed frame in the corner. It was made of a rich, dark wood, unadorned and still bearing some of the rough hewn edges from its construction.

The mattress may be thin, but it was more bed than Steve had seen in weeks. He sank onto it and then bent down to unlace his boots, and felt a wave of exhaustion crash over him. He shucked the boots off without properly untying them, pulled off his wet jacket and his shirt and trousers, and let himself fall back against the mattress. Nothing in his life had ever been as comfortable as that musty, frosted, straw-and-goose-down cushion. He let his eyes fall closed.

When they opened again—it felt like only a split second had passed—the bed was moving as Bucky lowered himself to the mattress. It trembled with the man’s almost-spastic shivers, and that, if nothing else, had Steve starting to sit up. “Buck, are you—?”

“Go to sleep, man.” An icy hand pushed at Steve’s shoulder until he lay back down, and then again until Steve turned on to his side with his back to the room. The bed shifted again, and Steve felt the weight of Bucky’s body as the man tucked himself, back to back, against Steve’s spine and shoulders, skin separated by the thin layer of the quilt. The spot quickly warmed from Bucky’s body heat.

Steve reached back and tugged the edge of the quilt from Bucky’s fingers, pulling it against his own chest instead, cocooning them both beneath quilt and pulling Bucky against the far warmer expanse of Steve’s bare back.

Bucky let out a low, shaking hum. His arm came to rest against Steve’s side, hand icy against Steve’s skin. His head tilted forward to press against the space between Steve’s shoulder blades. “God, you are a _furnace_.”

Steve hummed in agreement and let his eyes close. He’d expected it to be hard to sleep, with the uncertain environment and the cold and Bucky so close, but before he knew it, his thoughts were drifting, down, into nothing.

#

When Steve woke, it was completely dark in the room and his heart was pounding.

The trailing edges of his dreams dug in like fingernails even as they drained away, sharp and aching—a faint brush against his lips, skin beneath his palms, so vivid it was almost like a memory, except that he’d never actually—

He swallowed and stared, unseeing, at the rough lines of the wall an inch from his nose. There was a warmth in his stomach and a weight between his legs, and he pointedly ignored both, instead bringing both palms up to press hard against his face. For several long, unbearable seconds, he felt like he might burst out of his skin.

It faded after a few moments, though, like always, and he pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. Before the serum, he hadn’t had to deal with anything like this. Sure, he’d felt attraction, and he’d thought about sex like any teenager, but he’d never dealt with the physical side of lust the way he knew other men did. He’d been too ill, too weak—as one of the army doctors had joked during his pre-serum physical, he’d hardly had enough blood to keep himself alive, let alone power anything extra—and so having a body that actually worked properly, actually _responded_ , was still a novelty.

A frustrating, embarrassing novelty.

It was tough to tell how long he’d been asleep, but the fatigue had lifted from his bones a little bit. Rather than energized, though, it felt as if he’d gotten just enough sleep for him to actually notice how exhausted he was. It was startling—almost scary. Steve honestly _hadn’t_ noticed his lack of sleep. It had felt so natural to just keep going, keep chugging along, without consciously feeling the strain.

He swallowed. Every time he thought he was used to his new body, it threw him for another loop. Loathe as he was to admit it, Bucky was right. If he wasn’t careful, he just might run himself straight into the ground.

The room was almost too dark to see now. Above him, a slim haze of cloud-covered moonlight shone in through the broken window. The temperature had fallen even farther. Steve could feel the nip of the icy air against his ears, and where the tips of his bare feet stuck out from beneath the quilt.

His neck, though, was pleasantly warm. It took him a couple of bleary moments to realize that the warmth was from Bucky’s soft, sleeping breaths. The other man had curled closer against him in his sleep. It almost tickled, the way Bucky’s breathing ruffled the hair on the back of Steve’s neck.

Tentatively, Steve scooted back, and felt the nape of his neck touch warm, stubbled skin. Behind him, Bucky shifted in his sleep, pressing closer. The beard stubble felt like sandpaper against the spot where Steve’s shoulders met his neck. It was a strangely intense, strangely intimate. Not in a bad way, but perhaps more intimate than Steve felt comfortable with, especially considering this was Bucky, asleep and exhausted and unaware.

Guilt stirring vaguely in Steve’s stomach, and he inched away again, toward the wall and the colder stretch of mattress. He turned over—tangling himself in the blanket in the process—and watched Bucky’s sleeping face. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but it seemed as if some answer ought to be lurking in the line of his jaw, the muss of his hair, the way his chapped lips drew together in an unconscious frown.

Even as he watched, Bucky’s breaths quickened out of their slow, steady rhythm and worked themselves back into a shiver. Those lips parted on a soft, chattering inhale.

Now an entirely different kind of guilt drove Steve to fumble forward into Bucky’s space again. The blanket was pretty thin. Steve rearranged it slowly, trying not to jostle the bed too much.

A fire would probably be more helpful than anything, but he wasn’t sure how many hours they had until morning, when the smoke would be a sky-high beacon to their location.

Steve levered himself upright. The joints of the bed creaked beneath him, and the mattress dipped under his weight. At his side, Bucky pulled in a slightly deeper breath. Eyes still closed, he muttered, “Should I get my gun?”

“Nah.” Steve gave his shoulder a pat. “Door’s not getting kicked in right this second.”

“Then quit fucking moving.”

“I’m thinking I might go build the fire,” Steve said.

“Oh. Good.” Bucky tucked his head back under the quilt. His voice broke in a sleepy gravel. “I’m cold as shit.”

That settled it, then.

“I’m actually not feeling too bad,” Steve said, getting up on his knees and swinging his leg over Bucky’s torso, then the other, hissing when he lowered himself to the edge of the bed and his feet touched the icy floor. Now that he was out of the wind and wet clothes, the chill air against his bare chest felt brisk rather than cutting. “I could just dump you outside so the shivering doesn’t keep me up.”

“Every man for himself,” Bucky agreed in muffled complacency. “Do it, man. Put me out of my misery. I’m ready to go.”

Steve patted Bucky through the blankets, hard enough to produce a hollow _thump_ in the man’s chest, and then stood. “No you aren’t.”

Behind him, Bucky rolled over and watched as Steve stepped into the center of the room. When Steve started rifling through their backpacks, he said, “Lighter’s in my side pocket.”

Steve found it—a cheap, dented little thing Bucky’d won off a French soldier before the mission went to shit—and pocketed it. “You got any paper you’re willing to burn in there?” Normally, Steve would have a sketch journal or some stray newspaper in his own pack, but he’d already burned everything he had back when they were on their way out of _Aix-an_.

“Besides our map?” Bucky thought for a moment. “Might still have a few cards loose in the bottom.”

“Lord knows what you’ll do without those,” Steve said, unzipping the main compartment and thrusting his arm in deep, pushing aside the damp clothing and grimacing when his hand reemerged with several wilted pieces of waterlogged cardstock. They crumbled into gritty, wet pieces in his fingers. “Though we certainly aren’t going to burn them.”

“Map it is,” Bucky agreed, letting out the light, sardonic chuckle that he always used when situations were bordering on laughably grim. And wasn’t that just the story of their lives—trapped behind enemy lines in unfamiliar territory and ready to burn their only map.

Steve dug the map from his jacket pocket and slid it from its wax-paper wrapping. He unfolded it on the ground, then glanced at Bucky. “What do you say? Think we’ll need the north half of Spain any time soon?”

“I hear Barcelona isn’t that great anyway.”

Steve tore the map in half and folded the top piece back into its wrapping. The other half he crumpled into a loose ball and placed in the center of the empty fire place. After that, he pulled some pieces of shelving from the wall by the door and snapped them into smaller pieces, piling them into the fireplace as well.

“You should get back to sleep, Buck.” He tried the lighter a few times. It didn’t catch immediately, and he gave it a few good shakes, hoping that the sloshing within was lighter fluid, not water. He glanced back at Bucky as he did so. “I can get this going.”

Bucky lay with his head pillowed on one arm. His hair was starting to dry and stuck up where it had pressed up against the mattress. It was impossible to see where his eyes were pointed in the low light, but they were definitely open as he said, softly, “I guess I should.”

Steve turned back to the fireplace, said a quick prayer, and tried the lighter again. This time it did catch, and he rushed to light the edges of the kindling before it could go out again—which it did almost immediately after the paper caught. He sighed, then dove to cup his hands around the fragile little flame as a gust of wind down the chimney flue made it gutter and jump. “Something on your mind?” he asked as he leaned in close and pulled the splintered panels of shelving close, breaking off smaller pieces like the edges of a communion cracker and placing them atop the delicate flame.

“Nothing, really,” Bucky said. “Or—” He fell silent for a long minute.

The fire caught on the smaller pieces of wood, and Steve was just beginning to feed it larger pieces as Bucky murmured, “I was dreaming, I think.”

Steve almost didn’t hear him, he spoke so quietly. A normal person wouldn’t have heard, and something about the tone snagged in Steve’s brain like a thorn in clothing. He found himself automatically squaring his shoulders. “What about?”

“Germany.” The word hung in a hesitant silence.

Steve kept his eyes on the flame. “What about Germany?”

The mattress creaked as Bucky drew his legs up. “I don’t know.”

Steve waited, completely still, even as his knees began to ache from the fireplace’s stone floor. Sometimes it took Bucky a couple of tries to get to his point. You just had to be careful not to interrupt him.

“You, uh.” Another silence. “You remember when you found me?”

“Sure.” Almost a year later and every little detail was still seared into Steve’s brain. The lab room stinking of blood and piss and sweat and a petroleum-like odor that burned in his nose. Bucky, strapped down, red-ringed eyes fixed on some point far beyond the roof above him, slurring his name and rank—a detail Steve hadn’t really understood until later, after he sat in on a briefing on withstanding interrogation and torture. The uncertain way Bucky’d spoken Steve’s name, trailing on a breathy laugh, smiling through the tear tracks on his dirty face, as if Steve’s face were his salvation.

Steve’s throat tightened just thinking about it. “You weren’t doing great.”

Bucky gave a wry laugh. “No, I guess I wasn’t.” Another pause. “I was just thinking about that moment, in that lab, when I heard your voice, you know? I thought I was hallucinating. To hear your voice—Steve, _my_ Steve—in that place was impossible.” The bed creaked again as he moved. “And just now, I dreamt that you rescued me while you were still small, still sick. I was following you into battle, but you kept tripping because your shoes were too big.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh at the image. “That would be something to see.”

“It was.” Bucky fell silent for a moment. “It was just… It was so…” Bucky hesitated, as if searching for the right word. “So _bizarre_ when I saw you. When I stood up and you were taller than me. You could hold me up without trying. You were practically carrying me.”

The fire finally caught on one of the larger pieces of wood, and Steve shifted it so the other pieces would light as well. It took him a moment to realize that Bucky was back to talking about memory, not dreams. “Bizarre.” He rolled the word around. Tried to figure out what Bucky was getting at. “In a bad way?”

“No. Of course not.” He almost sounded a little indignant. “Hallucination or no, big or no, you were dragging me out of hell.” He paused, and Steve could practically _hear_ the way his eyebrows drew together before Bucky said, slowly, “Did I ever thank you for that?”

Steve honestly couldn’t remember. At the time, Bucky had been dazed, oddly concerned about Steve, instead of the other way around.

_Did it hurt?_

A little.

_Is it permanent?_

So far.

“Well, I could probably stand to thank you again,” Bucky muttered, when Steve didn’t answer. “The higher-ups tried not to tell us, but Peggy told me they weren’t planninga rescue mission. I’d still be there. If it weren’t for you.”

Steve’s ears went hot. “Yeah, well. Couldn’t let you off the hook that easy.”

Bucky ignored the attempt at humor. “She said you heard my battalion number, that I was missing in action, and you just couldn’t be stopped.”

Rather than reply, Steve leaned forward and busied himself laying out their damp clothes on the floor to dry. The fire was getting big enough to start giving off heat. Steve set the jackets, boots, and socks as close to the flame as he could without burning them when the hearth grew hot. He felt Bucky’s gaze on his back like a physical weight.

“Steve, look at me.”

Like a coward, Steve almost wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard the quiet command, but instead Steve made himself sit back on his heels and turn. To his surprise, Bucky was sitting up in bed now, legs crossed atop the mattress, blanket pulled up to wrap around his shoulders. The fire was growing, and Steve found himself watching the way the light flickered and jumped across Bucky’s face, drawing shadows beneath his cheekbones and the dimple in his chin, carving the wrinkles between his eyebrows into deep, shadowed canyons. The soft yellow glow of the light softened Bucky’s lips—or, rather, made them look even softer. And harder, maybe. Carved, like marble. He wished, not for the first time, that he hadn’t burned his sketchbook back in _Aix’an_.

Bucky’s eyes were steady on Steve’s, even as those lips pulled a crooked smile. “Least you could do is look at me when I’m trying to thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Against his will, Steve’s gaze dropped to the floor. “You’d have done the same.” And on top of it, Bucky had agreed to come fight by Steve’s side, even after all of that. The army could have sent Bucky home— _would_ have, with a pension and a medal of honor—but one word from Steve, and he’d stayed. He could have said no. Nobody would have blamed him for it.

Bucky cocked an eyebrow at Steve. “Don’t give me that face, man. I swear, for such a goody two-shoes, you’re about as subtle as a porcupine’s ass.”

“The hell’s that mean?”

“Means my mom used to say your heart was constipated, and she was right.”

“Is that what she was saying to me.” Steve had spent a great deal of time at the Barnes household, and while all of Bucky’s younger siblings spoke English, Bucky’s mother had communicated with Steve mostly in cheerfully incomprehensible Romanian and fond head pats. Mostly he remembered her constant attempts to get him to eat, and the way she’d put both hands on his shoulder and frown whenever he failed to finish his plate. “If only she’d gotten a chance to see me now.”

Bucky didn’t laugh. He had that look on his face that he sometimes got in the rare moments when he was determined to be serious, eyebrows drawing down, mouth tightening in parallel. “She was just afraid you’d close off. After your mom.”

Steve sobered. When Mom got sick, when she passed, he’d felt like a raw wound, ready to reopen and start bleeding again at the slightest touch. Just stepping foot in Bucky’s house afterward had been a physical pain, and when Mrs. Barnes took him in her arms and held him tight, he’d been afraid he might break, really break. He’d avoided her for months after that. It was nice to know she’d understood, at least.

The silence stretched. The fire started to really crackle. Steve remembered, with a jolt, that he’d meant to cover the windows. Hiding the smoke under darkness wouldn’t do them a lick of good if somebody saw the fire’s glow through the windows.

He stood and moved across the room, already missing the warm circle of the fire as he reached up and drew the wooden shutters across each window, pushing hard on one when the rusted hinges almost refused to budge. The hinge snapped, and he cursed and shoved the wood panel into the window frame with enough force to crack the glass pane.

Bucky watched him from the bed. When Steve finished latching the shutters in place, he moved to tend the hearth again, but found himself drawn instead to the bed. He sat heavily, letting the frame sag beneath his weight—there was a certain joy that he still found in his new size, in how it rearranged the world around him without him even trying—and pulled his legs up as well, mirroring Bucky’s cross-legged pose, their knees less than an inch apart, almost connecting.

As soon as he sat, he noticed the muscle twitching in Bucky’s jaw. Steve knew that look well. He’d seen it about a thousand different times and ways since he’d met the scrappy kid back in his neighborhood’s alleyway, and it always meant the same thing.

Steve nudged him with an elbow. “What is it?”

The directness in Steve’s tone made Bucky’s head snap to look at him, only to look away again, focusing on the fire. He blinked once, then said, carefully. “I would’ve gone after you, you know.”

“I know. That’s what I just said a minute ago. You might’ve been too busy moping to hear.”

Bucky grinned at that. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Yeah, well. I Probably wouldn’t have managed it quite like you did.”

Steve brushed the judgment aside. “It’s just chemistry and tech, Buck. If you’d gotten the serum, you’d be in my shoes right now. Better, maybe. You already had some bulk to build on.” And training. The 107th’s crack shot of a sniper.

Rather than laugh, something about Steve’s words made the measured calm of Bucky’s face crack. He ran a hand through his hair—an old, nervous trait he’d had since high school—and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I saw that Schmidt guy while I was there. You know, the guy with the, uh,” he made a vague gesture with one hand, fingers still curled in the blanket. “With the face. He came in a few times, while the—while the doctors were working.” His voice softened, turned hollow. “I don’t know what they did, but I’m different now, Steve.” He looked up again, and something about Steve’s expression made him grimace. “But I guess you knew that.”

He did, but didn’t bother nodding. Instead, he put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and gripped it hard.

Bucky allowed the touch, but dropped his head into his hands. “I thought they were trying to turn me into him. And they managed it. At least a little bit. At least, I lasted a lot longer than the other guys they were experimenting on.”

“Buck, you—”

“And I _feel_ different.” He shook his head, letting it cradle in his hands. “Like there’s more to me than there ought to be. Like there’s something burning inside. Or like there’s something extra, ready to burst out of my skin, and…” He trailed. His hands flexed in his short hair, like he might tear at it. “But the moment I saw you—” Bucky looked up again, eyes searching Steve’s face for something, an answer to some question, “I saw you. And I realized they weren’t aiming for Schmidt. They were aiming for you. Trying to turn me,” he worked his jaw. “You know. Into you.”

Something heavy and important fell out of the bottom of Steve’s chest. “Oh.”

Bucky’s voice from that night echoed in Steve’s head, rough and slurred and nearly drowned by encroaching gunfire. _Did it hurt?_

_Is it permanent?_

“Are, uh.” Steve searched for the right words and came up short. Wanted to ask _Are you alright?_ but knew that was an idiotic question at best. “Did it work?”

Bucky laughed. It was a little too long, and it splintered at the edges. “I don’t know.” He looked down at his hands again. “It hurt a lot.”

Rage swelled in Steve’s chest. He tamped it back down. For later, when he’d be free to nurse it. That rage had no place in this moment. This was the first time Bucky had been willing to speak about any of this, and Steve needed to focus. Not just as Bucky’s friend, but as his commanding officer. “Have you seen anything permanent?”

“Not really.”

He tilted his head. “Nothing at all?”

A pause. A breath. “I’m a better shot than I used to be.”

“You were a good shot before.” Steve had heard the reverent way people talked about the sharpshooter of the 107th. Steve might be the army’s hero now, but Bucky was brewing his own legend before Steve even got to the front line.

“Trust me. I’m better than I was.” Bucky’s eyes flicked up to Steve’s, then back down again. When he spoke again, his voice shook. “I hardly sleep anymore. I don’t _bruise_ anymore. Sometimes when I fight I can hit really, really hard, way harder than I should be able to. And—I don’t know. I’m a lot more fucked in the head than I used to be. I get nightmares about the camp, sure, but sometimes I dream that I’m burning from the inside and not dying, and it makes me wonder…” He pushed hard with his thumb into the palm of his other hand, as if trying to push the skin aside and see what was underneath. “I haven’t seen any red yet, though.”

“Oh, Buck.” Before he could stop himself, Steve reached across their knees and caught Bucky’s left wrist—his dominant—and clasped it between both his hands. He pressed his lips compulsively against the dry, punch-calloused skin of Bucky’s knuckles. “They couldn’t ruin you if they tried.”

Bucky set his jaw. Rather than pull away, he looked at Steve like a drowning man—like whatever Steve did, it had the power to pull him up for a breath or drag him to the depths.

“Here.” Steve set Bucky’s hand down on his knee and reached again across the gulf of their crossed legs to press a palm to a warm, stubbled cheek, receiving a startled look, but no apparent reproach. He uncrossed his legs and scooted into Bucky’s space. “Let me look at you in the light. I didn’t get this fire started for nothing.”

Bucky opened his mouth, maybe to protest, but shut it again and allowed himself to be drawn closer.

Steve pretended not to notice Bucky’s legs—crossed between them like a barrier, long and muscled and hairy in a way he’d _noticed_ more than once before—and brought his other hand up as well, framing Bucky’s face between his palms.

“You know,” he said, tilting Bucky’s head in the firelight like he might examine a drawing from every angle. “I don’t see any red either.” That earned him a scoff and an eye-roll. Both felt like a victory—like when they roomed together and Bucky would come homefrom a day at the docks and fall onto the couch. Steve would sketch the lines of his back until Bucky finally perked up enough to pose like a pin-up girl, stretched out on his side, hands behind his head. _I need to practice. Let me sketch_ _you natural,_ Steve would say, and Bucky would just purse his lips and insist _This_ is _me natural_.

Now, though, Bucky’s amusement didn’t turn to preening. Instead, his jaw was tight beneath Steve’s fingers, and though he seemed to want to keep his eyes to the side, he blinked a little too quickly, as if fighting the urge to meet Steve’s gaze.

Steve ran his thumbs underneath Bucky’s eyes and pulled down clinically to expose the whites, like a veterinarian. Up this close, he could smell the warm heat of Bucky—sweat and wool and tobacco—earthy and a week removed from soap, but not in a bad way. In a very good way. He pulled in a deeper breath.

Now, Bucky did look at him. Meeting those eyes felt like getting nicked with something sharp, and Steve looked away. He’d crossed a line, and he knew it, but Steve fought the flinch and some insane courage made him lean even closer, still playing the admirer, scrutinizing the spot where smooth skin met week-old stubble. “Nope, no red,” he said again. “Except maybe here.” Steve let his thumb press against a spot on Bucky’s jaw, where some small thing—maybe shrapnel, maybe the edge of an enemy’s glove or a sharp edge on his rifle—had left a cut. It hadn’t healed so much red as pink, in a fragile little line. “And you’re looking distinctly non-skeletal, for what it’s worth.” Especially now that he’d put some weight back on. He _had_ been pretty bony when he first came out of the camp.

Steve was expecting another scoff. Instead, as he lifted his thumb from the spot, all he got was silence. Those eyes still watched him, expression inscrutable and very, very still. Bucky’s breath was warm and slow against Steve’s wrists and the palms of his hands.

Their faces were so close. Steve thought maybe he should pull back, but found himself unwilling to let go. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

Bucky’s jaw moved beneath Steve’s palms. “What for?”

“I—” He laughed and, even though he knew he shouldn’t, let his fingers curl around the back of Bucky’s jaw. They found warm skin, sandpaper stubble, and a hammering pulse. “I don’t know.”

Bucky blinked and breathed in like he might say something, but didn’t. The spot between his eyebrows crinkled the way it did whenever he was calculating, firelight glinting off his eyes. Hesitantly, as if Steve might pull back—as if that were even possible—he turned his head to the side and pressed his lips against Steve’s palm.

Steve’s breath caught in his chest. He might have made a sound—felt something tight expand in his chest, saw the responding quirk in Bucky’s lips—but couldn’t hear anything past the sudden rush in his ears. A thousand idle daydreams flashed to the front of his mind, the ones he’d tamped down over the years as he watched his best friend grow from awkward, angry child to the handsomest man in New York.

But he’d always taken those daydreams and directed them toward chasing girls. Definitely not toward—

Still holding Steve’s gaze, Bucky hooked a hand around the back of Steve’s neck, and pulled him in until their lips met.

Steve’s thoughts went blank. Kissing Bucky, he discovered in that moment, felt a lot like getting punched in the stomach. Knocked the wind right out of him. He actually pulled back, away from the kiss, like a goddamned idiot.

Bucky pulled away as well, even more sharply, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he said, instantly. “Shit, Steve. I thought—I dunno what I—”

He cut off when Steve pressed up into the space between them and kissed him again, properly, kicking himself for pulling away in the first place. Even eighty years from that moment, in a future he never could have imagined, he’d think back on that split-second of despair on Bucky’s face and kick himself all over again.

Bucky let out a startled hum, and then both his hands were tangling themselves in Steve’s hair, pulling him closer deepening the kiss until it almost hurt, their teeth bumping together as they both tried to press forward, sloppy and uncoordinated. Steve tasted a little bit of blood where his cold-chapped lips split beneath the pressure.

Something lit up in the pit of Steve’s stomach, hot and sharp, like shrapnel, and the burn of it seemed to chase out all coherent thought. Before he knew it, Steve was moving up on his knees, hands on Bucky’s jaw, mouths still crushed together, kissing down into him like he was trying to breathe the man into his lungs.

Bucky groaned. His grip on Steve’s hair was borderline painful. Steve thought briefly of something one of the stage girls had said to him after his silly plywood shield had gotten caught in her hair—remembered how he’d stammered and blushed at her tone but completely failed to understand—and now all he could think of was that he wished those fingers would pull harder.

He hummed as Bucky finally broke the kiss and drew back. For a moment, Steve thought Bucky might say something, those pupil-darkened eyes were so intent, locked with his own. But then Bucky looked down, and his slack mouth grew sly, and he leaned in again. For another kiss, Steve thought, but then Bucky ducked his head and caught the side of Steve’s jaw instead.

Those lips, the brush of stubble against the side of his throat, had him panting. His hands caught Bucky’s shoulders and anchored themselves there. He tilted his head back, unable to do more than hiss through his teeth as those lips brushed his throat, a chill nose against his pulse, teeth twin lines of pain that shot like little jolts of electricity down his spine.

And then Bucky’s hand was against him, warm through the thin cotton of his shorts. Steve gasped and grabbed at Bucky’s forearm, catching it tight. He honestly couldn’t say whether he wanted the touch to continue, or to stop. He might burn to a crisp if it continued.

The arm didn’t resist, but Bucky’s kept nipping at him and then shuffled up closer to him and, in a voice that seemed to rasp like the stubble against Steve’s throat, whispered, “Can I?”

“ _Ah_.” The wordless sound felt like it was being squeezed, breathless from his core, and just like that, all reservation crumbled. He released his grip on Bucky’s arm. “Shit. Yes. Please.”

Bucky hummed against him, pleased. It was the same sound he always made when he’d managed to convince Steve to do something—when he’d convinced Steve to ride the roller coaster at the pier, or when he’d managed to convince Steve to go on yet another double date. That chuckling hum was, in Steve’s experience, a sound fraught with danger.

And sure enough, deft fingers tugged at the waistband of Steve’s shorts and dipped inside to wrap lightly around the painfully-hard length of Steve’s cock, and Steve found himself biting his lip, screwing his eyes shut at the sensation, already almost too much.

Bucky’s mouth found his again, and he bit those lips instead, groaning when Bucky’s free hand found its way into his hair again. Steve let himself be pushed back against the bed, the quilt bunching beneath his back as Bucky crawled on top of him. A thumb brushed the top of his cock and he groaned into Bucky’s mouth. The hand on him started to move in slow, firm strokes.

Steve felt a bit like he was back in his body for the first time again, overwhelmed in a world that was suddenly too sharp, too loud, and far too fragile. He focused on staying still, on not arching hard enough to throw Bucky right off of him, or god-forbid breaking the bed. He had a hand around the bedpost and could feel the wood warping and splintering in his grip.

At the sound of cracking wood, Bucky broke the kiss and glanced up, the strokes of his hand slowing. Steve opened his eyes and focused on the jumping shadows of the firelight along the underside of Bucky’s jaw. Bucky looked down again, eyes uncharacteristically dark, mouth parted. He looked Steve up and down, then flicked his gaze back up to Steve’s pan-hot face.

“God,” he said, and then he was kissing Steve again. It was deeper this time, more insistent.

Bucky’s hand left his hair. He missed the contact, right up until he realized that it had relocated to Bucky’s own cock.

Steve started to sit up and reach for Bucky’s prick—hell if he was gonna lie back and let someone else do all the work—but Bucky chose that moment to press his chest against Steve’s and stick his tongue in his mouth, hot and somehow still lingering with the chocolate from the rations they’d eaten that morning, and it was suddenly all Steve could do just to wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and kiss him back.

He’d jerked off before, he knew what it felt like, but he was still surprised, somehow, when the heat in Steve’s stomach built up and boiled over. He gasped into Bucky’s mouth as he came, shuddering as Bucky hummed against him in response.

After a few seconds, Steve had to break the kiss just to breathe. Bucky let him, dropping his forehead instead to press against the hollow of Steve’s throat, kissing there lightly, hand still stroking on his own dick.

Steve managed to unclench his grip from around Bucky’s shoulders, raising an unsteady hand to card it through Bucky’s hair. The strands were still soft, even with the days’ worth of grime and sweat and blood, it didn’t matter. He tangled his fingers in those strands and tried a gentle pull.

Bucky hissed, and then he was coming as well, wet and sticky across Steve’s stomach.

Steve felt his own dick twitch in response to Bucky’s shuddering sigh, and petted Bucky’s head where it lay slack on his chest.

On the other side of the room,the fire crackled in its hearth. It was already beginning to smother in its meager supply of wood. Steve didn’t particularly care.

He let his hand leave Bucky’s hair to trace the edge of his jaw. Bucky tilted his head under the touch and relaxed completely, the entire length of his body pressed against Steve’s, their legs tangling together. His chin was a sharp point against Steve’s clavicle as he raised his head to look Steve in the face.

Bucky was grinning at him. It was probably the first true smile that he’d seen on that face in ages. Steve had almost forgotten how the man looked when he smiled like that, all open and self-congratulating. It was enough to make Steve wish he hadn’t burned his sketchbook.

“I thought that kissing with tongue was a French thing,” Steve said. It was the first thing that came to mind, and some gut instinct told him he shouldn’t let the silence last any longer.

Bucky’s smile widened. It was absolutely blinding. “Well, we _are_ in France, Steve.”

Steve felt his own lips twitch in automatic response. “Do we—? Are we—?”

That satisfied look faded a bit. “We don’t have to talk about it. Right now.”

“Okay.”

They both watched the fire for a bit. It was nothing more than dim red embers. A crack in one of the window covers was beginning to brighten with dim, chill light. Dawn was approaching.

Steve tried to imagine what this meant for them. Perhaps it meant something. Perhaps nothing at all. Soldiers got up to this kind of thing in the field, sometimes, he knew. And they knew each other so well, trusted each other so implicitly, it made a certain kind of sense that this could happen on a cold, lonely night, and neither of them would breathe a word of it again.

God, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

Bucky shifted a bit. It was turning still colder in the room, now that the fire was dying down, and even with all of his front pressed against the furnace-like heat that was Steve, visible goosebumps were standing out against his shoulders and the back of his neck. He reached for the blanket, gave it a tug, laughing, to pull it from beneath Steve’s back, and then wrapped it around his shoulders and sank back to the mattress at Steve’s side.

Steve stretched out an arm. Bucky settled his head on top of it. “I can hear you worrying from here, Steve.”

“I’m not worrying.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wanted to…” If he blushed any harder, he might actually pass out. Steve glanced down at Bucky’s face. “You did all the work. I wanted to—you know.”

“Get me off?” Bucky looked almost surprised, then grinned again and twisted his head up to kiss the corner of Steve’s jaw. “Well. Next time.”

“Next time,” Steve agreed, and just like that, the sick dread in his stomach faded. There would be a next time. They could figure everything else out later.

#

Of course, later never came. Morning came, and they packed up and trudged the rest of the way out of France. After that, it was all debriefings, intel, strategy meetings, drinking with the Commandoes. Within a week, they were on another mission in the Alps, and Bucky fell, and it would be seventy years until they saw each other again.


	2. During

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the events of Civil War, and some off-screen moments we didn't get to see.

When Steve stepped into that dingy little apartment in Romania, he wasn’t sure he’d found the right place. Newspapers on the windows, folded clothing in a plastic sack, a bare mattress with an open sleeping bag on top, all signs of on-the-run living, juxtaposed against the drab little kitchen, tiles missing but with freshly-cleaned dishes drying in the sink.

That folded and water stained museum pamphlet from the Captain America Museum made his stomach ache. It had been unfolded and refolded so many times that the creased edges were white where the ink had worn away.

When Bucky entered the room—no mask, no blood, no guns, just a baseball cap, some stubble, and a guarded stare—it was all Steve could do not to hug him. He actually took a step forward, but froze when Bucky took a mirroring step back as well.

And when Bucky had said, “That’s smart,” poised to run, voice stoic and under control, and added, “Good strategy,” and Steve had wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until… Steve wasn’t sure what he wanted from him, but that mixture stoicism and distance and watchful waiting definitely wasn’t it.

When they were fighting, Steve couldn’t quite pinpoint Bucky’s goal in the situation. Obviously, he was trying to run, but he seemed to be running from the SWAT teams, T’Challa, and Steve all equally

And now, he sat cross-legged on the concrete, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle-distance as the SWAT commander pointed a gun at him and said, very loudly and slowly, “Does the weapon detach?”

The weapon? Bucky didn’t have any weapons on him. Unless they meant—

“You mean his arm?” Sam said, as he was loaded into the back of an armored car. He raised his voice as he passed out of view. “I hope you know that shit’s not gonna detach without a hacksaw.”

Steve could see the logic, he grudgingly supposed, even as he fought the urge to snap his flimsy handcuffs and march over. The moment they’d had Bucky on the ground, the SWAT personnel had attempted to sedate him with something in a spring-loaded syringe, straight into his flesh arm, and then been apparently baffled when Bucky simply sat there, seemingly unaffected. Supersoldier blood, metabolizing the sedative before it could reach his brain. Steve was the same way—an Army doctor had once suggested it would be an issue if they ever needed to perform surgery, only to come to the conclusion a moment later that Steve would likely never require surgery of any sort.

Steve felt a hand at his elbow as Colonel Rhodes steered him toward another car. Steve held his ground stubbornly. He’d picked his spot very carefully, between Bucky and King T’Challa, who had his helmet off now and was watching Bucky with hard eyes. “Actually, I need to—”

“You need to get into the truck, Steve,” Rhodes said, softening the words with a smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve got a handle on this. We’ll get it all sorted out once we get back to HQ.”

Steve wondered if they were still friends. Rhodey’d bought him a pair of antique silver cuff-links for Christmas the year before.

He let himself be lead into the truck, glancing back one last time and meeting Bucky’s eyes. The other man looked away, and didn’t look up again, even when he was pulled to his feet and dragged to a specialized armored carrying car.

#

At the UN holding facility, Steve sat down at the table at Sam’s side. He watched the various military, UN, and SHIELD personnel scramble around like demented chickens. A woman in a gray pant-suit walked by with a tablet in one hand and a smartphone in the other, speaking into the phone and typing on the tablet with the backs of her knuckles.

Steve sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, hoping he looked nonchalant as he said, “What do you think?”

Sam had a small stack of papers in front of him. He smoothed them out with one hand. “I think they’re running a shoddy establishment. Do you realize they called your shield a ‘circular flag disc’?”

Steve had not realized, and he didn’t particularly care at the moment. “We managed to save him from getting taken out, but I have no idea what’s gonna happen now. He didn’t want to talk to me. He would barely even look at me, Sam.” Although, no, that wasn’t actually true. In the apartment, Bucky had barely taken his eyes off of Steve, as if he were afraid to look away. He only broke the gaze once the SWAT team could be heard on the stairwell outside the door. But once they were at street-level, Steve might has well been just another bureaucrat in a drab gray suit.

“Well we’ve already established you aren’t much of a conversationalist.”

“Could you be serious?”

Sam leaned back and leveled Steve with a frown. “First of all, I am attempting to introduce some levity into a tense situation. Everybody needs to take it down a notch. You especially, Steve.” With deliberate motions, Sam folded the papers and tucked them into a pocket. “And second of all, there’s something you need to think about. As far as we understand it, the dude’s got major issues, right? Brainwashing, being used as a puppet to commit assassinations, and god knows what else.” He didn’t wait for Steve to nod. “You want a happy reunion, and I don’t blame you. But you might not get that for now.” He gripped Steve’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Maybe not for a while.”

#

As the power went out, Sam’s words seemed to echo in Steve’s head and they tolled like a church bell with each step. And he was damned if seeing that dead-eyed stare on that familiar face again didn’t cut him to the bone.

When Bucky had knocked him down back at the apartment, the attack had been almost gentle, like sparring, but now those deep-bruise punches were back, and Steve made himself go on the offensive. He had to contain him, before Bucky ended up adding more bodies to the list.

And it was that same logic that made Steve grab onto the helicopter, blades and his own safety be damned, because god forbid Bucky actually got away and Steve never saw him again. Steve was sure he’d lost him, as he felt himself being dragged along the rooftop, metal creaking in his grip, and then when he caught an actual hold on the roof’s railing, there was nothing in the world that could’ve made him let go. He would’ve ripped in half before he lost his grip.

By comparison, Bucky’s grip on Steve’s throat might have seemed strong, but broke as soon as the helicopter went over, before they even hit the water and Bucky was knocked out from the force of the crash.

Steve had to kick in the windshield to pull him free—of course the man hadn’t buckled himself into place; training, or a left-over remnant of the headstrong kid who’d tried to ride a rollercoaster once without the safety harness, just because he didn’t think he’d need it—and pulled him to the surface as fast as he could. They would only have a couple of minutes, tops, before SHIELD and UN officers arrived on-scene.

With one arm, Steve struck out for the river’s edge. His other hand locked itself in the flimsy material of Bucky’s sweater, and although it probably would’ve been easier to tow Bucky behind him, Steve propped his head up against his chest the whole way to shore.

As he pulled Bucky up onto the edge of the canal—that damned metal arm screeching as its heavy fingers pulled along the rough concrete—a white taxi pulled up just a couple of yards away, its light off, and Steve swore, set Bucky down, and let himself fall into a defensive stance.

The window rolled down, and Sam leaned his head out, eyebrows high.

Steve sagged, and said, “Oh, thank God,” and hauled Bucky up and onto his shoulder.

Sam pulled up closer, getting out and opening the back door.

Sam whistled as Steve hauled Bucky’s body into the back seat. “Looks heavy.”

“He—definitely is.” Last time Steve picked Bucky up was— Well, he’d been much lighter then, Steve thought, swallowing, automatically fighting to shove down the faint bit of heat that threatened to flush across his face.

It had to be the arm made Bucky so heavy, Steve decided, and automatically lifted it from where it had come to rest on Bucky’s chest. It _was_ heavy. A bench-pressable amount of weight. Heavy enough that it might actually constrict Bucky’s breathing, Steve decided, lifting it from Bucky’s chest and lowering it until it hung down to the taxi’s floor.

Sam watched silently, and stomped the gas as soon as Steve got into the car. He waited a moment before speaking. “So that was an absolute shit-show.”

“Could’ve gone better,” Steve agreed.

“We should go back to the UN,” Sam added, even as he pointed the car in the entirely opposite direction.

“You know we can’t do that, Sam.”

“I know.” He pulled them onto a main street. The cab had been a good choice. They were easily lost in the dense flow of traffic.

“We should head down to the warehouse district,” Steve said. “We need to get away from people.”

Sam pulled obligingly into the proper lane. “You know, I’m just gonna say it. I think you’re a little insane about this whole thing, Cap.”

“I’m fine, Sam.”

“You just pulled a helicopter down on top of yourself.”

“I, uh.” Steve wiped an arm across his face. Water was still trailing form his hair, into his eyes. “I think he crashed it on top of me, technically.”

Sometimes it was difficult to tell whether Sam was frowning or resisting a laugh. “Well, what did you think would happen?”

“That he would leave.” The words came out harsher than Steve intended. He scrambled to give a reason why. “If he got away, who knows what he would do?”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said, eyes on the road. “And you’d chase him the whole way, wouldn’t you?”

_Of course_ , Steve wanted to say, but he knew how that sounded, so he didn’t. “I have a responsibility to him. And to everybody else. To protect them from him.”

“You’re not his keeper, Steve.”

“I know him better than anyone.”

“Do you? Really?” Sam’s long fingers spread on the steering wheel in a sort of shrug. “You haven’t known this guy for the better part of a century.”

“We grew up together, Sam.”

“Sure, I get that.” Those fingers lifted apologetically. “I mean, I had some good friends growing up, but I’m not sure I’d really say I _knew_ them if they walked up to me today. Even if they weren’t shooting at me.”

“I know him,” Steve repeated, but even as he said it, he caught a glimpse of Bucky’s bloodied, slack face in the rearview mirror. Unconscious, the man in the backseat could easily be the same man who used to come home from a day at the docks and collapse on the faded red couch in their living room, head tilted back just like that, chest rising and falling in a thin cotton shirt, just like that.

But when Bucky woke once more, that familiarity lots its sturdiness. Sure, the man was amiable enough, answering their questions, all apparent ferocity gone. He even laughed a little, which damn near cut Steve down to the bone. Seeing that face smile felt like he truly was seeing a ghost.

And yet when Steve came closer to free his arm from the vice, Bucky watched him steadily and sat up as straight as the angle of his arm would allow. The control box was on the other side of the machine, and as Steve hit the release button, he could hear the immediate rattle of Bucky’s arm against the great metal slabs, and when he walked back around the machine, Bucky was already on his feet, metal hand opening and closing at his side.

“You alright?” Steve asked.

“Fine. Are we still in Bucharest?”

“Yeah. You were only out for a bit. Your head—” It had a pretty nasty bruise, and Steve automatically raised a hand—he hadn’t intended to actually touch, just to point, but Bucky avoided it nonetheless with a slight shift of his weight. It was subtle, not meant as a statement, simply putting himself out of Steve’s reach.

Steve dropped his hand and instead tucked it into his pocket. “What happened back there? You mentioned words. That man was controlling you somehow?”

Bucky nodded, an odd, slow motion that seemed to take more concentration than it ought to.

Sam spoke up from across the room. “What, like a special command word?”

“More like a code.” Bucky ruffled his flesh hand through his hair, and for a moment he looked just like himself again, thinking hard, eyebrows and lips drawn into a straight line. “I don’t really know. My memory’s not too good.”

Steve remembered the file Fury had given him on Bucky, with the completely context-less black and white brain scans, a poorly-focused image of a chair with some kind of electrical apparatus meant to fit over a face, and beneath that picture the single non-redacted phrase amongst lines of blacked-out ink: memory augmentation.

He forced a smile. “That’s alright, Buck. We can help you figure that out later.”

The thumping of helicopters drew closer, and Bucky glanced up, tracking the brief outline of a chopper as it streaked above a dusty skylight. “That’s a nice idea, but I’d say you’re throwing your change at the wrong horse.”

#

_Throwing your change at the wrong horse_. That was something the old Bucky would’ve said, the kind of sarcasm Steve grew up with—the kind he would dish right back in the smug punk’s face.

Steve thought about that as he glanced back at the smoking facade of the concrete building. That blast from his shield and Stark’s reactor had turned the ice around the base a light, gunmetal gray. His arm was still numb from the impact, pins and needles from fingertips to chest. He couldn’t even feel where his hand wrapped around Bucky’s waist as he pulled the other man along beside him.

Bucky was barely conscious. His arm was around Steve’s shoulder, fingers wrapped around the straps where the shield should’ve hung.

Maybe Steve did choose the wrong horse, but it seemed to him that there was really only one horse to choose. Wasn’t his fault the entire track had to go and burn down for no damn good reason.

He imagined Sam would give him shit for being so sorry for himself.

He pulled them along another few steps. The snow was thick, the ice slick beneath the boots, and Steve realized suddenly that he had no idea what to do next. The quintet was their only way out, but Tony and his people were obviously capable of tracking it, and Steve and Bucky couldn’t afford to be found again any time soon, not as beat up as they were.

He paused a couple dozen yards from the quintet and shook his head, trying to think.

Beside him, Bucky remained fairly still, but after a moment he shifted his grip on Steve’s shoulder. “Twelve o’clock,” he mumbled. “Cat guy.”

Steve looked up as well and bit his lip to keep from swearing. Maybe if he let go of Bucky, he could keep T’Challa busy enough to give Bucky a chance to make it to the jet—but no, without his shield he stood no chance against those claws. “Your highness,” he began, without any idea what he was going to say.

T’Challa held up a hand. “I no longer have reason to fight you.”

Steve took a moment to digest that. “Oh.” He adjusted his grip on Bucky, who was beginning to sway, hand going slack on Steve’s shoulder. “Then would you mind giving us a ride?”

T'challa eyed them both. There was a kind of pained humor in his expression as he finally nodded. “Of course. I’m afraid I need to take off immediately, as I have some… baggage that must be delivered to the UN immediately.”

Steve’s mind really was moving sluggishly. He couldn’t imagine what T’challa might be talking about, and then tried dully to remember the last time he’d slept. “We probably shouldn’t go to the UN.”

That humor turned to a real smile. “I will escort you elsewhere first, if you like. I have some excellent medical facilities at my home in Wakanda.”

Oh, thank God. Steve managed a faint smile of his own. “I really appreciate it.”

“It is the least I can do,” T’challa said, already turning, heading to his own jet, which was nestled down between several snow drifts, camouflaged a speckled gray-white to match the ice.

Steve jostled Bucky enough to rouse him into walking the rest of the way to the jet, supporting him up the slope of the loading ramp, and then lowering him gratefully onto a low padded bench in the cargo area.

T’challa continued farther into the jet, leaving Steve and Bucky alone.

Steve sat on the bench beside him and watched T’challa’s retreating back. A faint suspicion managed to penetrate the post-battle fog. He lowered his voice and muttered, “Why do you think he changed his mind?”

Bucky wasn’t looking too sturdy, breathing in rapid, shallow breaths, eyes pointed at the floor. “Dunno. Maybe that’s just what kings do.”

“Yeah, I guess nobody’s gonna stop him,” Steve said. The floor shuddered beneath them as the jet rose into the air. “What do you think's gonna happen next?"

Bucky didn’t answer, eyes still pointed somewhere across the cargo bay, on the cool metal of the walls. Steve had come to despise that metal arm, but without it Bucky looked awkward, lopsided, leaning even when he sat up straight.

Steve gripped Bucky’s good shoulder and gave it a shake to get his attention. “Hey. Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”Sure, the man’s arm had been blown off, but Steve couldn’t say how much of the damage was damage to the machinery and how much of it was damage to Bucky himself.

Bucky didn’t look up. Instead, he just kept on staring and, as if the words were being squeezed out of him, said, “God, I’ve missed you.” Rather than pull away, he dropped his head to Steve’s shoulder and let out a long, slow breath.

Steve gripped the back of Bucky’s neck, forcing their foreheads together. Bucky smelled simultaneously just like his old self and like an entirely different person, that old smell of leather and sweat and gun oil now mixed with blood and burnt things. “I missed you too.”

He doubted Bucky heard him, though. The man had already gone slack against Steve’s shoulder, and didn’t move again until they touched back down, hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter! (So I can put new posts up in a reasonable amount of time.)  
> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


End file.
